Matt Ridley has just had a tremendous essay published in WIRED magazine, one that everyone should take a few minutes to read, because it sums up the issues of all the end time fears, fallacies, and failures we have collectively experienced in one tidy little package. – Anthony

By Matt Ridley

When the sun rises on December 22, as it surely will, do not expect apologies or even a rethink. No matter how often apocalyptic predictions fail to come true, another one soon arrives. And the prophets of apocalypse always draw a following—from the 100,000 Millerites who took to the hills in 1843, awaiting the end of the world, to the thousands who believed in Harold Camping, the Christian radio broadcaster who forecast the final rapture in both 1994 and 2011.

Religious zealots hardly have a monopoly on apocalyptic thinking. Consider some of the environmental cataclysms that so many experts…